


Roles

by Corycides



Category: Demons (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 08:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing stays the same forever, not even demon hunters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

The shaded lamp cast green hued light over the old, yellowed pages of the book. Ruby sat curled up in one of the big leather chairs and ran her forefinger slowly down the page. Over a year of this and this was the first time she’d gotten close to the end. There was always something

Dracula.

She turned the page carefully. It was a first edition and cost more money than she’d probably ever see in one place. The last thing she needed was to rip it now.

“It’s not the truth you know,” Mina commented, her clear, clipped voice carrying through the dusty silence. She sat at the table, trailing her fingers over the Braille studded pages of her own books. “Not really.”

Ruby marked her place with an envelope and looked up. She hoped Mina hadn’t been reading her mind since she’d rather been hoping she’d gotten the wrong end of the stick all these years and Mina Harker would snuff it any page now.

“I just figured I should read it,” she said. “It seemed like the start of all this. The Harkers and the Van Helsings. The half-lives.”

Mina tilted her head, her profile pale and perfect. “Not the start,” she said. “A start, perhaps; one with truth wrapped in a romantic libel to make it more palatable.”

A smile tugged the corner of Ruby’s mouth and she shrugged. “Wow,” she said. “Good thing you told me, otherwise I’d be expecting Mr Tibbs to turn up in a tuxedo next time.”

That earned her one of Mina’s faint - why, you are an entertaining urchin – half-smiles before the psychic went back to her books. Ruby had gotten over being jealous of her and Luke years ago – say it often enough and it might be true one day – but she wished she could do that. Have all that poise and just use it to squash people.

“Do you really think that’s what I’m like?”

Ruby paused in the middle of opening the book. “I think you shouldn’t read people’s minds.”

“Sometimes it’s difficult,” Mina said. She turned, blind eyes searching out the source of Ruby’s voice. “When I’m close to someone.”

“I can move back.”

“Emotionally close.”

“We aren’t close,” Ruby found her place again. “You think I’m in the way.”

Mina smiled again and raised her eyebrows. “I thought I was the psychic,” she said. Her thin, elegant hands lay clasped in her lap. A stained bandage wrapped her left wrist where a vampire had gouged chunks of her tainted flesh from her bones. It was why she wasn’t hunting tonight. “And you haven’t been in the way for a long time, Ruby. Are you going to tell Luke?”

Ruby flicked the page.

“No. I was thinking I’d just disappear and wait for him to come and find me. Then all of a sudden he’d realize what he’d been missing and it’ll be just like a movie!” 

Mina smiled and turned back to her Braille. OK, so maybe Ruby had day dreamed about that scenario a couple of times. She’d daydreamed about a lot of things. That didn’t mean she’d ever thought any of them would really work. She ran her fingers through her hair and looked over at Mina.

“I’ll him tonight,” she said. “When he gets back.”

It shouldn’t be possible for a back to look that smug, but somehow Mina’s managed it.

She was on the last page when Galvin and Luke came staggering back from the Hunt, Galvin leaning heavily on Luke’s shoulder and dragging a leg that was bloody from thigh to ankle. Mina’s hands froze in mid-air over the pages and she lifted her face, worrying tightening her face.

“Ruby?” she asked “Are they alright?”

She could tell him later.

“Galvin’s hurt.” Ruby set the book aside and scrambled to her feet. “I’ll get the medical kit.”

“Thank you.”

Mina rose hurriedly to her feet and walked over to help them, one hand touching Luke’s arm and one Galvin’s. They looked right together, the three of them. Warriors, Smiters of the Half-life. Ruby got the medical kit from Galvin’s office – he kept it locked up but Ruby figured that if he really wanted to keep her out he’d get a better lock and ran back out.

She stopped dead at the top of the short flight of stairs and stared.

“Oh god,” she said, covering her eyes. “Now I’m scarred for life. I’m going to have to become a lesbian.”

“Ruby!” Luke snapped. “This isn’t the time! He’s hurt.”

“He’s wearing silk novelty boxers.” Ruby jumped down the stairs and handed the box to Mina. She opened it and plucked out what she needed with such surety it was hard to believe she couldn’t see. A mixture of the scientific – antiseptic and stitches – and the magical – feverfew and charmed bone needles. She touched Galvin’s knee and walked her fingers along his thigh to the top of the wound. She doused the already festering wound in antiseptic and set to stitching.

Ruby ducked back to Galvin’s office and found the other thing he kept locked up, the half-bottle of whiskey in the bottom drawer. She snatched a glass from the shelf and went back out, pouring a glass for Galvin. He took it off her and tossed it back in one, squinting his eyes shut against the bite.

“Thank you,” he grunted. His hand tightened around the glass, knuckles poking white through his skin, when Mina jabbed the needle into his leg. He jerked his head towards the table. “Go check on Luke? We lost the girl.”

Guilt and grief were almost visible weights on Luke’s shoulders, pulling his shoulders down and slumping his whole body forward. Tell him tomorrow, Ruby rescheduled the conversation again. She went over and perched on the arm of the chair, slipping her arm around his shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice at first. Then the stiff line of his body slackened and he leant into her, pressing his head against the point of her shoulder and squeezing his eyes shut.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ruby reminded him.

A ragged chuckle shook his body. “Then whose was it?”

“Tibbs,” Ruby said. “His fault. Not yours.”

Luke made a raw sound and scrubbed his fist over his eyes. It had been hard – the last few months. Something had happened, or was going to happen, and Half-Life activity had rocketed in both frequency and virulence. Tibb’s in particular.

“Not your fault,” Ruby repeated.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Ruby woke up with a crick in her neck and pins and needles prickling from her toes to her knee. She uncurled herself from the chair and sat up, wriggling her toes and trying to stretch the ache from her bones. Her watch read ten o’clock and it took her a moment to realise that meant it was morning.

“Oh great,” she muttered. “I’m late. Again.”

She stood up, cursed, hopped and hobbled over the tiled floor. Galvin was sleeping on a couch, his boxers thankfully covered with a blanket, and Mina and Luke were nowhere to be seen. Breakfast run probably. Or research.

Ruby shrugged, grabbed her coat and headed for the door. Galvin would be safe here till they got back. Only one Half-life had ever made it in here, and he’d not be back. Measures had been taken.

“When were you going to tell me?” Luke said, making her jump.

He sat in a shadowed alcove between the door and a shelf, a heavy book in his lap and something square and white in his fingers. Ah.

“Today,” Ruby said. She sat down on the stair and wrapped her hands around her knees, slipping her fingers through the gaps in her fishnets. Her legs were cold. “Yesterday. Since I got it. Just never seemed like the time.”

Luke nodded, dark hair hanging over his face, and stared at Ruby’s university application. His face looked pale and sharp, shadows lurking under his bones. He flipped the edge of the paper with his finger.

“Trinity. Ireland?” He looked up. “Didn’t you get in anywhere closer? Galvin can – “

Ruby twisted to rest her chin on her knees.

“I didn’t apply anywhere closer,” she said.

Luke blinked and looked back down at the letter. His jaw tightened until it looked like it might shatter and he started to fold the letter, over and over again. Smaller and smaller.

“Is it because of me?” he asked. “Because I don’t-“

“No.” Ruby couldn’t bear for him to say it aloud. They’d never be able to friends again if he said it. If she knew that he knew how she felt. Too cringe-worthy. “Not that. It’s...It’s because of that.”

She pointed with her chin at the book. Luke stared at her like she’d gone mad.

“Dracula?” he said. “You’re leaving because of Dracula? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Ruby shrugged. “It kinda does.” She crawled over to him and tucked herself into his side. Luke ignored her, both hands still busy with his clumsy folding. The piece of paper was too small to fold easily now. Ruby put her hand over the book. The old scar that ran from knuckles to wrist looked stark. “You’re all in here, you know? Van Helsing, Harker, the tough American. This is your story, your past and your future.”

“There’s other characters in there,” Luke said.

Ruby snorted. “Yeah, Renfield with my luck. I’m not there, Luke. You’re the Hunter, not me, and I need my own story, my own life. I need...not to be the sidekick anymore.”

The thick square of paper was finally small enough to disappear inside Luke’s fist and he clenched his fingers tight. He swallowed and looked at her sideways from under those thick black lashes.

“If things were...”

She winced, “Luke, don’t.”

“Different,” he settled on the careful phrasing. “Between us, between you and Mina. Would you stay?”

Ruby folded her lower lip fretfully between her teeth. Her self-respect was staging a last stand on her tongue, determined not to let the words out, but it had never won much where Luke was involved.

“Honest?”

He nodded. “Honest.”

“Yes, I’d stay,” she said. “But it isn’t and you don’t and she won’t, and lying about it will only hurt us both more in the end. You’ll do something stupid-“

“Me?”

Ruby raised her eyebrows at him.

“Which of us was accepted to study psychology again?” she asked. “I forget.”

“I have higher responsibilities.”

Ruby teased him with a smug smile and a twitch of her shoulder.

“I have higher test scores, Mr Too Busy to Study I have to Learn How to Kick a Man’s Spleen Out.”

“Long name.”

“It’s hyphenated.”

Ruby gently unfolded Luke’s fingers and took her letter back. It was warm from his skin and smeared damp around the edges with sweat – and keeping it would not be a appropriate memento. It was one thing to have a crush, another to start living in someone’s closet.

“I gotta go. My mum will be worried.” Since the letter was already folded she stuck it into her back pocket and got up. “It’s a good thing, Luke. I’m not Galvin’s godson and heir. I need to make a living.”

Luke lifted his chin and gave her his best miserable, puppy eyes. “I’d share,” he said. “Anything I had.”

One thing a ten year crush did for you was give you practice pretending not to melting inside. Ruby rolled her eyes and snorted, holding her hand out to him.

“You wouldn’t even share your Pepsi with me the other day,” she said. “And if you ever get married, have a bunch of little smiters running around, you think your wife will be ok with that? I’m not going TODAY, you know. My flight’s not for over a month.”

After a dragging second Luke put his hand in hers and let her pull him to his feet. Well, pretend that she was helping. He pulled her into a bone-crushing hug and kissed the top of her head.

“I’ll miss you,” he said.

Ruby buried her face in his chest for a second and then pulled back, tilting her head up to grin at him.

“Mobiles. IMs,” she said. “My family lives here? I’m not moving to Alaska to count penguins. I could swim back and forth.”

“You can’t swim.”

“I can, sorta, and you know what I mean. You won’t have time to miss me, Luke. And Galvin’ll be happy not to have to worry about me anymore. That’ll be a sight to see.”

Luke nodded and let go. He stepped back and folded his arms, pinning the book against his chest. There should have been something left to say but there wasn’t. Ruby turned to go.

No more hunting. No more half-lives. No more Luke.

It felt strange leaving the Stacks behind, off-kilter. People had always assumed he’d be the one to leave her behind: the posh kid and the sink-estate brat. He’d be the one to fall in love and go to University and get a real job. She’d always assumed that on some level. It felt weird, doing it the other way around.

Ruby stuck her hands in her pockets and put her head down against the wind. She almost bumped into Mina coming around the corner, dancing clumsily to avoid snapping either ankle or stick. With her Casablanca vibe well and truly shattered she caught her balance.

“Sorry.”

Mina just stood there, perfect as a doll, and tilted her head thoughtfully.

“Dracula’s not the only story,” she said. A gloved found Ruby’s shoulder and lay there. “And there are half-lives in Ireland. You won’t be a stranger, Ruby.”

With that unnerving promise, prediction, Mina let go and left, tap taping her way back towards the Stacks.


	3. Chapter 3

The party was over. It was getting late, most people had already left and all there was left to do was clean up the empty bottles. In the doorway to the flat Jenny gave Ruby a hug and ruffled her short, dark hair. Luke lurked in the hallway, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket and his shoulders hunched up to his ears.

“I’m proud of you,” Jenny said “And don’t you go forgetting us back here, OK? I want regular postcards.”

Ruby smoothed her hair back down with both hands and smiled brightly.

“I promise,” she said. “And if I come across Colin Farrell, I’ll drug him and ship him back over here to you.”

“Or his brother,” Jenny said. “I’m not going to complain.”

Ruby screwed up her nose dubiously. “I think he’s gay,” she said.

“And I’m a widow with an unemployed son still living in my attic conversion,” Jenny said dryly. Luke rolled his eyes and sighed. “I can’t afford to be picky here, sweetheart.”

Ruby laughed and, with one last hug and a wave for Galvin, she hooked her arm through Luke’s arm and they left. Not for good, not yet. That was on Friday. Jenny leant on the door and stared after her thoughtfully, long after the two of them would have disappeared into the lift or down the stairs.

“Penny for them?” Galvin said. He poured the last of the wine into two glasses and sat down carefully on the sofa. His leg – strained playing tennis as far as Jenny was concerned – was still bothering him. Whatever that thing Tibbs’ cooked up had been, its claws had encouraged fester. He’d doused it in antiseptic ever day for two weeks and it was only just starting to heal. He shifted to get comfortable and stretched his leg out under the coffee table. “If it's Luke, you know that he always has a job in my firm.”

Jenny closed the door with a sigh and took the other end of the sofa. She picked up her glass and took a gulp of tepid wine.

“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the Old Boys Network, Rupert,” she said, tilting her head back against the cushion. Strands of hair straggled over the dark, rough fabric, framing her face like a halo, and the dim light stole the wrinkles from her lips and around her eyes. Although it could do little about the bruised shadows fingered over her eyelids, temples and under the cant of her cheekbones. “But I always rather hoped Luke would have a career other than being your godson for the rest of his life. I don’t know what he’s thinking, throwing away all his opportunities...”

Galvin did and a familiar niggle of guilt poked at his conscience. He ignored it. It was still best to keep Jenny out of the loop, out of harm’s way, as best they could. Not least because she’d kill him if she found out his part in Luke’s chosen career.

“Luke knows what he’s doing. You don’t have to worry about,” Galvin said, hiding honesty behind the trappings of the truth. “And if he makes a mistake, he’s still young enough to do something to fix it. It’s only when you get to our age that the mistakes start to set in concrete.”

A sigh puffed out Jenny’s cheeks and she rubbed two fingers against the bridge of her nose, pushing her pinched eyebrows apart.

“Tell me about it,” she said tiredly.

“Something wrong?” Galvin asked.

There was a pause and then Jenny opened her eyes and laughed, dismissively and unconvincingly.

“No,” she said, pushing herself up straight in the chair. A wing of pale blonde hair fell over her face and she brushed it back behind her ear. “Just Luke.”

Galvin eyed her thoughtfully. Something else was wrong, something she didn’t want to tell him. He could push, but if it didn’t involve a half-life it wasn’t his business. Not yet.

“He’s just taking Ruby leaving to heart so,” Jenny went on. She rested the side of her glass against her chin and frowned. “You don’t think he’s realized...”

“What he missed out on?” Galvin finished for her. He sat back and twisted his mouth thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. He’s dating that girl – Muffy or Buffy or...”

“Beth,” Jenny supplied.

Galvin shrugged. “Whatever. I think it’s just...change. Ruby’s always been part of his life and he’s come to expect that.”

“Like you and Jay.”

The mouthful of wine went down the wrong way. Galvin spluttered into his hand, coughed and gave Jenny a dark look.

“I better be the guy in this little scenario of yours,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and got up, heading into the kitchen. Cupboard doors opened, closed and she came back in with another bottle of wine and a corkscrew. She handed it to him to open as she sat back down again.

“I’m not saying that you had a crush on Jay,” she said. “But I remember what you two were like when I first met you. The pair of you were inseparable, joined at the hip practically. And oh, how you hated me.”

Galvin stopped with the cork half in, half out of the bottle.

“I hadn’t thought you’d noticed,” he said, popping it out and pouring. Straw coloured liquid splashed into Jenny’s glass and then refilled his.

Jenny sat back and pulled her legs up into the lotus position, bare-feet tucked under her knees. She leant back against the arm of the sofa and smiled dreamily.

“I remember this face you used to make.” She mugged the expression for him, narrowing her eyes and curling her upper lip into what was not QUITE a sneer. “And you’d call in the middle of every date we went on.”

Galvin didn’t remember it being quite like that. She made him sound like a jilted schoolgirl. He and Jay had been brothers in arms and the calls had been genuine Half-Life incursions. But he had resented the eco-hippy little blonde that Jenny had been back then, all vegetarian restaurants and causes. Maybe some of the calls could have waited.

He lifted the corner of his mouth in a reluctant smile. “I knew he was serious about you when he turned off his phone.”

The smile that curved Jenny’s wide, red mouth behind the glass was bittersweet with memory. Tears swam in her pale blue eyes, making them look almost glazed. She sniffed and swiped at the end of her nose.

“I think I knew he was serious when you started being nice to me,” she said. “But I think that is what’s up with Luke. He’s always had Ruby there, and now something else is taking priority in her life. Ruby still loves him, he just can’t be her all anymore.”

She heaved a mournful sigh and they sat in silence, drinking their wine. Galvin thought over what she’d said; maybe she was right. There was more to it. The Half-Lives had been vicious recently, wearing Luke down to bone and twitching instinct, and they’d all come to depend on Ruby. She still hated hurting anything, even Half-Lives, but she was the one who lifted everyone’s mood and dealt with any situation that required smoothing over rather than intimidation. (Mina was his oldest still mostly living friend and without her skills he’d have died a hundred times over, but she wasn’t as easy with people at Ruby.) They’d all miss her, but he supposed Luke had been depending on her a lot longer than the rest of them. Just like him and Jay. That was...troubling.”

“I was married you know,” he said. 

It was Jenny’s turn to snort wine down her nose as laughter caught her by surprise.


End file.
